"Void anchors, I just happened to have read about them one time, they come from old mythology." "It predates life as we understand it." Jax said with one finger pressed to the page, crouched just outside the dungeon gates with his guide spread open across his knee. "Are you alright Mira?"
Mira watched him for a moment, then stretched both arms overhead until her shoulders cracked. Cursing at the soreness from the fight. The tension that had filled the corridor seemed to leave her the moment fresh air touched her skin. To her, the problem was already behind them.
"Well," she said lightly, "that sounds like it's the guild's problem now, doesn't it?"
"Maybe…" Jax shut the book and stood up, giving the dungeon entrance one last look before turning back toward the road to Ravelin. "If those things are really void anchors, then we must tell the guild." "Maybe they'll know what is going on and who that man was."
The path back passed through a long stretch of forest before opening into the farmlands surrounding the city. Morning carts had already started heading to the gates, wheels rattling over firmly packed dirt and rock, farmers hauling crates and bundled greens before the adventurer crowds swallowed the main roads.
Neither of them said much at first, the adrenaline had burned off somewhere between the stairs in the dungeon and the road after. Leaving behind a dull exhaustion that sank deep into the both of them.
Jax focused on small details to settle himself. The creak of wooden wheels. The way sunlight sat warm across the tops of the fields. How many carts he could see in front of him, counting helped calm the panic.
Mira glanced back at him. "How much do you think that hobgoblin would've earned?" "I'm sure it would fetch a high price." Her eyes twinkled as she thought about the money they weren't going to earn.
They had nearly died in the dungeon, on the second floor. Saved by a stranger who had appeared out of nowhere, and somehow that was still where her mind went first.
"All you think about is food and money…" "We almost got crushed, you know?" he said. "If that man hadn't stepped in, we'd definitely be dead, Mira."
Watching him with the same grin she wore whenever she thought the conversation was already over and that she was definitely right. Mira turned and walked backward for several steps. "Yeah, but if we had won?" She said, her voice raising as the thought came out.
By the time they made their way to the guild hall, the roads had become packed with people and carts. Leaving almost no room to get through. Adventurers drifted in and out beneath the broad stone archway.
Inside, the usual work carried on uninterrupted, clerks wrote, teams argued over how to split the pay.
Jax stepped to the front counter. "We need to file an official report. It needs to be heard now!"
The woman behind the desk barely looked up. "Monster irregularity, injury claim, or route obstruction?" "What-"
Cutting the secretary off mid sentence he said. "Something…" Leaning in toward the woman as she wrote. "...is very wrong on the second floor."
Her eyes lifted fully now. "Please… explain." As she leaned forward her glasses slipped lower, correcting them she said. "What exactly is it, you are wanting to report?"
"There was a hobgoblin," Jax said. "On the second floor." In a panic, his hands began to shake. "Last I checked hobgoblins don't spawn anywhere near that floor."
He explained the corridor, the pressure, the anchors driven through the creature's spine. He then explained how its mana had felt wrong, how every pulse had made casting magic harder.
When he finished, the clerk folded the paper and sealed it with a wax stamp.
She looked between both of them. "I'll send it upward," she said at last. "If other reports match, the guild will respond." "That is all for now," "Thank you for your report and please grab a quest on your way out."
They left the guild and headed toward Shinra's shop, the quiet argument from the road picking up right where it had left off.
"I'm telling you, Mira, please do not spend all of our money." Jax begged, his hands grasped each other as he shook them toward her. "Thats all we have until we can go back out."
"Relax. I'll leave enough for us to survive." She replied by bouncing the bag of shards into the air repeatedly. "I just wanna buy something Jax… come on."
Jax gave her a look that could cut steel. "You are… impossible."
"You formed a party with me anyway."
As they opened the door, the little bell above rang as they stepped inside. The shop was more crowded than usual, every wall packed tight with gear and three things Jax was fairly certain Shinra could not legally explain.
Mira noticed it too. "That is a ton of stuff Shinra, was it a new shipment?"
"Actually," Shinra said from behind the counter, "I made almost all of that while you two were gone on your dive."
He looked them over once and clicked his tongue. "You guys look terrible, that's a promising sign for me though. It means the dive was hopefully… profitable."
Mira handed the jar of soul gems to Shinra.
He lifted it, inspected the contents, and gave a small concerning hum. "That's a lot of gems. Shame they're such low quality." He tipped the jar slightly. "You know they're cracked too… right?" Looking over toward Jax. "Three days," Shinra said, looking from the gems to the two of them.
"You really stayed in there for three whole days?"
"We barely slept or ate," Jax said. "I thought I was going to die several times." Continuing on as his face lowered even further. "She wouldn't listen either… some man rescued us, right before it was almost lights out." He said, running his thumb across his throat with a large gulp.
Mira shrugged as if that were a normal answer.
Shinra named his price and Mira accepted it with much satisfaction, more than she should have. Jax was still watching to make sure she did not immediately trade half of it for a sword she didn't need when Shinra's tone shifted.
"Did you two hear anything strange on the way back?"
Jax looked up. "What kind of strange?" The question clicking a lever in his head.
"The bad kind," Shinra said as he set the jar down. "You're not the first people to come in looking like something didn't quite go their way."
Jax felt something cold settle in his stomach. He stepped closer to the counter. "We found a hobgoblin on floor two."
"Holy shit… a hobgoblin?" Shinra said, loud enough that someone in the back glanced over. "On just the second floor? How are you two still standing?"
Jax explained the fight in pieces, the mana compression and about the stranger who stepped in when they were about to be killed. Shinra listened without interrupting, his face growing more and more concerned as the story was told.
"If it wasn't for him..." Jax cut himself off, fighting back the tears. "...we probably wouldn't be here right now."
"Jax, we should probably head to the inn, I want some food and a hot bath." She said, walking toward the exit, stopping only two times to look at more equipment.
After saying their goodbyes, they left with a few supplies and less money than Jax would have preferred. Both of them were filled with more dread than either of them could have explained.
The city had shifted again by the time they started walking back toward the inn. Not enough for anyone else to stop and name it, but now every conversation about the dungeon sounded sharper when it drifted past them.
When the inn came into view, the scent of food had thickened in the air. Jax's stomach growled. "Smells like Sherley made something good."
"Her cooking is the best thing in this city," Mira said. "It almost makes this place feel like home."
They took a table near the back and ordered enough food to feed half the east district.
The inn thinned around them as the hour got late. Chairs emptied, voices dropped, plates disappeared one by one.
When they finally stood, the room had gone quiet enough that their footsteps sounded too loud on the stairs.
Mira stretched as they entered, heading for the washroom.
Jax sat on his bed, wondering if things had changed for worse.